The Journey of Humanity: And the Keys to Human Progress

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Not only a succinct, unified theory of economic growth since modern humans evolved, but also an engaging and optimistic answer to anyone who thinks that poverty and inequality will always be with us .”— Ian Morris, Stanford University’s Jean and Rebecca Willard Professor in Classics and author of The Measure of Civilization The Journey of Humanity takes on the huge task of explaining how humanity got to this point, which the author calls the Mystery of Growth. The second half explains why this growth has not been universal across nations, which the author calls the Mystery of Inequality.

There is so much Oded Galor forgets or ignores... it all comes down to weak correlations! But, anyway, they look so PERFECT that people could believe this is the truth. A wildly ambitious attempt to do for economics what Newton, Darwin or Einstein did for their fields: develop a theory that explains almost everything. ”— The New Statesman The explanation of the takeoff into sustained growth is a little bit less satisfying, but that’s partly what happens when you only have one first sustained takeoff—and it happens at a time when the world is globally connected so you don’t have the (somewhat) independent data points you have for studying other issues. Galor argues was a situation where small changes can lead to a large change—which he analogizes to “bifurcation theory” in mathematics.In lucid, accessible prose, Galor ingeniously traces obscure influences over centuries…. This engrossing history reveals that subtle causes can have astounding effects.” — Publishers Weekly The escape out of the trap would require a large population size and, population diversity. The core of his original argument and data is this population diversity aspect. The other reasons are well accepted, and if I may say better explained in say Youval Harari's "Sapiens" or individually in specialist books.

Galor concludes with a short and relatively superficial discussion of the public policy implications of these ideas. From my perspective the fact that the book does not explain issues like the United States vs. Argentina also is related to its overly facile dismissal of the “Washington consensus”. Of course it ignored culture, institutions, population diversity and geography—but by the way most of those are not changeable and there is enormous variation within regions that are similar in those regards. Nothing about the deep roots of incomes is a reason why a country, for example, should run large budget deficits financed with short-term foreign borrowing or have a budget devoted to subsidies while neglecting primary education or have weak property rights.A masterful sweep through the human odyssey…. If you liked Sapiens, you’ll love this. ”—Lewis Dartnell, author of Origins A very good but perhaps not great book. Does a good job staying focused on the biggest of human stories, evolution, survival, growth, inequality and the future while remaining interesting throughout. Fascinating book…Highly exciting journey through the economic history of mankind from the Stone Age to the present day.”— Frankfurter Allgemeine Finally, the fourth underlying story is the one that Galor’s own research has advanced and the idea that is the most intriguing but frankly also feels the most speculative to me. Specifically he points out that migratory distance from Africa is closely related to population diversity—which is very high in Ethiopia but very low in Bolivia because of the “serial founder effect”. He argues that diversity has a plus (lots of ideas from combining different perspectives) and a minus (clashing) and that this leads to an inverted U-shaped relationship between population diversity and various economic outcomes like per capita income.

Astounding in scope and insight, The Journey of Humanity provides a captivating and revelatory account of the deepest currents that have shaped human history and the keys to the betterment of our species.”— NourielRoubini, Professor Emeritus, NYU, and authorof Crisis Economics: A Crash Course in the Future of FinanceA] sweeping overview of cultural, technological and educational forces…Its breadth and ambition are reminiscent of Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel and Harari’s Sapiens. ”— Financial Times The institutional discussion largely draws on work by Daron Acemoglu and co-authors on the importance of “inclusive” institutions instead of “extractive” institutions (describing their quasi natural experiment around settler mortality, leading to different types of colonization, different institutions, and income levels today. These and more questions are answered within The Journey of Humanity. However, the author does not provide a suggested solution beyond a rather simplistic “don’t force a developed world solution on a developing world’s entirely different culture”. In addition, the book is written like a college textbook with a large and technical vocabulary that may trouble some readers looking for a more popular science level of prose. 3 stars. Yet his optimism about humanity shines through – prize its diversity, commit to educate its children and they will find their way to innovate and create a culture of growth. It’s a great way to look at the world, but a healthy recognition that power, capitalism, finance, the existence and structure of states and public philosophies – some right, some wrong – are all part of the brew would have made his account more realistic. Sad to say they would also have made it less optimistic. Humanity, as Kant said, is made of crooked timber from which nothing entirely straight can be made. Galor’s book would have been the stronger had he leavened his sunshine with some shadows.

Just like the theories that promise to tie together all of physics or any other science, Galor’s work aims to make the world’s economic trajectory seem logical, even inevitable.”— American Banker Galor is quite often named as potential candidate for the Nobelprize. With this book he got a remarkable and unprecedented deal (for an economist) with his publisher: it was translated at the very same time into almost 30 languages. Unparalleled in its scope and ambition…All readers will learn something, and many will find the book fascinating. ’— The Washington Post I am in awe of Oded Galor’s attempts to explain inequality today as a consequence of such profound forces. A remarkable contribution to our understanding of this mammoth dilemma.” —Jim O’Neill, author of The Growth Map

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The second half of the book is about the rise of inequality between countries. He eschews any discussion of the growth theory of Solow, Lucas, Romer and the like and goes—which he briefly dismisses as “proximate”—and instead instead goes to the deeper, underlying theories: (1) institutions, (2) culture, (3) geography, and (4) population diversity.